Yeates, Lindsay B., Thought Experimentation: A Cognitive Approach, Graduate Diploma in Arts (By Research) Dissertation, University of New South Wales, 2004.

This dissertation offers an integrated, systematic account of the qualitative, symmetrical patterns that are shared by all thought experimental activities, which include the wide range of hypothetical questions employing subjunctive reasoning that are a routine part of science, as well as the wide range of appeals to imaginary experience made in the hypothetical case studies routinely used in philosophy (especially ethics), the social sciences (economics, sociology, history, politics, etc.), and legal studies — all of which are, obviously, domains in which "true experiments" cannot be implemented.

The development, construction, and the internal mechanism of the thought experiment process (the major constituent of which is the analogy) is examined, and a practical, useful and all-encompassing definition of thought experiments is presented, along with a unique, seven-part typology of thought experiments, based on the qualitative temporal differences between each class of thought experiment.

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